Oxygen is a gas of significant interest, simply because of its role from the cycle of all living organisms. Measurement of oxygen concentration or partial pressure is important in the wide variety of the applications. In some applications, gaseous oxygen concentrations are measured directly. In other applications, the concentration of oxygen dissolved in a liquid is measured. It is important to realize that the term “dissolved oxygen” refers to gaseous oxygen dissolved in water, and it should not be confused with combined oxygen as found in the water molecule, H2O.
A promising application for the measurement of dissolved oxygen is in biological specimens. These biological specimens may be in vitro specimens in a laboratory, or in vivo specimens within a patient. The measurement of dissolved oxygen in biological specimens provides important diagnostic information for care providers, and/or information about the efficacy of a particular treatment.
Frequently, a biological specimen is contained within a bioreactor/mixer, and the dissolved oxygen measurement provides important information about the state of the biomass contained therein.